This invention relates to a telephone support device and in particular a device which includes a headband which rests over the user's head and which can support an existing telephone handset with the earpiece against the ear so that the user's hands can be left entirely free.
Telephone handset support devices of this general type are known and are to be preferred to trying to balance the handset on the user's shoulder. Examples of known devices are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,481,387, 4,048,453, 2,020,084 and 4,121,061. The arrangement described in those earlier patents however either requires the telephone handset itself to be specially adapted as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,061 or to employ a loop or the like which fits as a strap round the earpiece to hold the handset in place. Such an arrangement may have been satisfactory when virtually all telephones were of the same shape and size so that the strap would fit but, with today's modern telephones, the handsets come in such diverse shapes and sizes that it would not be practical to provide an individual strap for each design of handset.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an arrangement which is capable of supporting more or less any telephone handset irrespective of its shape and size.
According to the invention, the telephone handset support device includes a resilient headband capable of fitting over the user's head and provided with earpads adjacent either end for engaging the ears of the user, and a clip which is detachably attached to one earpad, the clip including a base having connecting means for detachably connecting that base to the headband, the connecting means including a central opening so that sound from the speaker in the telephone earpiece can pass through the connection means and headband to the user's ear, a pair of spaced resilient gripping arms which extend generally outwardly away from the base and towards one another to define a region into which the earpiece of a telephone handset can be placed such that the arms grip around that earpiece, and a resiliently mounted lever urged towards the base and arranged to bear on the end of the earpiece so as to press this against the base and together with the gripping arms retain the earpiece in the holder.
The arrangement of the gripping arms and the resiliently mounted lever is found to provide good connection for all shapes and sizes of earpiece of the telephone handset to the clip.